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Wikipedia Science

Wikipedia Is Basically a Corporate Bureaucracy, Says Study (gizmodo.com) 153

Jennifer Ouellette, reporting for Gizmodo: Wikipedia is a voluntary organization dedicated to the noble goal of decentralized knowledge creation. But as the community has evolved over time, it has wandered further and further from its early egalitarian ideals, according to a new paper published in the journal Future Internet. In fact, such systems usually end up looking a lot like 20th-century bureaucracies. [...] This may seem surprising, since there is no policing authority on Wikipedia -- no established top-down means of control. The community is self-governing, relying primarily on social pressure to enforce the established core norms, according to co-author Simon DeDeo, a complexity scientist at Indiana University. [...] "You start with a decentralized democratic system, but over time you get the emergence of a leadership class with privileged access to information and social networks," DeDeo explained. "Their interests begin to diverge from the rest of the group. They no longer have the same needs and goals. So not only do they come to gain the most power within the system, but they may use it in ways that conflict with the needs of everybody else.""The Iron Law of Oligarchy, demonstrated by Wikipedia," wrote Sean Carroll, theoretical physicist at Caltech. "Rebel all you want, ultimately you become The Establishment."
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Wikipedia Is Basically a Corporate Bureaucracy, Says Study

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  • by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2016 @09:07AM (#51996449)
    For all the complaints against bureaucracies, they are often the only way a large organization can run. As organizations grow and mature, they often evolve into bureaucracies. Bureaucracies are often a very efficient way of performing work. The main problem with them is they tend to become static, and inhibit future change. Parts of bureaucracies work to keep themselves in business, and resist change that would eliminate them, even if they become obsolete.
    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Once parts of a bureaucracy - generally as a result of these changes they so resist - begin to operate primarily so as to ensure their continued existence, that's generally the tipping point where very soon the entire system turns into something Sir Humphrey Appleby would be most proud of.

      It also becomes ultimately hostile to all things it should originally have served and worked for the good of.

    • I'm not to impressed with wikipedia one of the things they do is make sure that biographies/discographies of indie label artists are not published even if they top the cmj charts, are on many the ordinary digital music services, have CDs in distribution to music specialty stores, and have played for crowds of over 50K.

      • I'm not to impressed with wikipedia one of the things they do is make sure that biographies/discographies of indie label artists are not published even if they top the cmj charts, are on many the ordinary digital music services, have CDs in distribution to music specialty stores, and have played for crowds of over 50K.

        so how did these people make it into Wikipedia then? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

        • Mandi immediately began work on her major label debut album, Alice In No Man’s Lan

          She had one album on a major label...

    • by JaredOfEuropa ( 526365 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2016 @09:33AM (#51996685) Journal
      Bureaucracies are not often a very efficient way of performing work, or even organizing it. What bureaucracies do is formalize and standardize business administration procedures, thereby making it easier to manage work... but that is not the same thing as efficiency! Usually it results in predictable mediocrity.

      That's not an "iron law" though, at least I don't think so. Standardizing business processes in itself is a good thing, however I think we are not (yet) very good at designing those business processes and promote the right way to use them.
      • by Archangel Michael ( 180766 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2016 @10:02AM (#51996947) Journal

        predictable mediocrity

        It doesn't even have to be mediocre, it just hast to be consistent. McDonalds didn't get to be a big huge restaurant chain by making good or even average burgers. It got there making passible (D-) burgers that were completely consistent from New York to Los Angeles.

        That is the whole point of the bureaucracy, is to provided consistent services / products, and the more consistent, the better the margins (and profit). But there in lies the problem, the more consistent you are, the closer you are to the center mean (average) and the tighter the curve, the better consistency you have, which ultimately lowers the mean over time. The problem here, is that there is NO effort applied to making better quality at all, just consistency.

        True greatness comes from those that are outside of the statistics of average that provide consistency. BUT that also requires the ability to fail, spectacularly. True greatness (unique) has great risk and artistry requires taking chances on the off chance of creating something spectacular.

        To make it into a car analogy, you can build and engine to get 200,000 miles without much maintenance, or you can build an engine that can produce 500 HP that is always on the verge of blowing up spectacularly and needing all sorts of constant attention. Both are "great" in their class, however, one is more consistent.

        This applies to all systems that are built. You can build for consistency or you can build for greatness. Once you realize that these systems built for consistency are driving towards the mean, then you can realize where the actual problems are when trying to move to greatness. That is one of the great barriers that I think Edwards Deming (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming ) helped to break down. But his style processes MUST be a conscience decision. It is also something I think Breaks down the Bureaucracy that leads to mediocrity. Mid to Upper Management cannot adequately understand the process to make improvements to it, and therefore are incapable of modifying the process to improve it.

        • big huge restaurant chain by making good or even average burgers. It got there making passible (D-) burgers that were completely consistent from New York to Los Angeles.

          When considering McDonald's I think it's important to consider their core competencies: fast, and cheap. They deliver on those, and deliver very well.

          • by TheDarkMaster ( 1292526 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2016 @12:07PM (#51998271)
            And consistency too. Usually when I'm in a new place where I do not know about the quality of local food I eat at Mc'Donnalds, because their process is so standardized that it is very difficult to make the sandwich the wrong way. It is not ideal of course, but you can rely that the sandwich will always be at least acceptable.
            • by dj245 ( 732906 )

              And consistency too. Usually when I'm in a new place where I do not know about the quality of local food I eat at Mc'Donnalds, because their process is so standardized that it is very difficult to make the sandwich the wrong way. It is not ideal of course, but you can rely that the sandwich will always be at least acceptable.

              That is probably management's goal, but McDonalds is currently not consistent at all. There are big differences between franchise-owned restaurants and company-owned restaurants. There are enormous differences between McDonalds restaurants in good neighborhoods and those in bad neighborhoods. There are regional differences too.

              McDonalds got to where they are today by selling total consistency and standardization. But they lost their way many years ago. It's a total crapshoot now.

              • Well, at least here where I live and neighboring states is really hard to find a Mc'Donnalds where the lunch is badly made. Of course there will always exist a guy so stupid that he can not do even a Big Mac right, but these ones quickly end up fired.
          • fast, and cheap.

            Fast. Not Cheap

            I can get a better burger, if I am willing to wait. And it really isn't that much more expensive (if at all). Compare In-n-Out pricing to McDonalds. Within a buck of each other for a "meal"

        • by g01d4 ( 888748 )
          Consistency, or reducing variation, is one of the first steps in quality improvement. The next step involves process improvement. For the consistent car company this might mean reducing tolerances to allow for changing the design to increase HP - without sacrificing consistency. The HP car company would improve their processes to achieve more consistency. It's not an either/or, and consistency should be one of the early steps.
          • Thomas Kinkade Paintings vs Monet.

            Both are decent, but there was no point KinKade was going to ever measure up to Monet in artistry. I don't care how good his process was. ;)

    • by Anonymous Coward

      "Bureaucracies are often a very efficient way of performing work"

      They may start out that way, and depending on how well they're managed (the strong leadership paradox) they may continue operating efficiently for quite some time. But invariably they become corrupt or wasteful. Its like an often modified piece of code, if its edited & cleaned up occasionally by someone who knows what they're doing it operates very well. If a bunch of people just throw in mods randomly without auditing the code it becom

    • by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2016 @10:32AM (#51997253)
      Any organization will develop a hierarchical operating structure. Even when there is no formal hierarchical structure (e.g. high school, or Valve [wikipedia.org]), one naturally develops. We as human beings have an innate desire to conform with society [wikipedia.org], and those with the position or influence to determine what "society" is naturally end up on top.
      • Even in Lord of the Flies they were able to create various operating structures at different times.

        Some people seem to think structure is somehow external to the human experience, without understanding that is not only internal but a strong, deep trait.

        They are big, therefore they have structure.

        Were they small, they would also have structure.

        Were they one person doing the whole thing, they would have structure. But the word "bureaucracy" wouldn't apply. It might not matter that much; I doubt even 50% of th

    • . . . to Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy [jerrypournelle.com]. It's just human nature.

    • by Aighearach ( 97333 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2016 @11:48AM (#51998019)

      I find it hilarious, because calling it a "bureaucracy" is like saying, "the sun rises." It is just a statement of fact that flows directly from it being large, and requiring processes.

      I'll give the young haters a hint: bureaucracy is a word, and it can be looked up in the dictionary. It is not a pejorative bad word. It is a word, with meaning. A neutral, descriptive word, that is neither good nor bad.

      If you read/watch the news, when a politician is against an agency action they describe the people making the decision as "bureaucrats." When the same people are taking an action they approve of, they're "non-partisan career professionals" according to the same person. ;)

  • by Mashiki ( 184564 ) <mashiki@gmail.cBALDWINom minus author> on Wednesday April 27, 2016 @09:13AM (#51996507) Homepage

    Really? Tell us something that the average person doesn't know, and one of the reasons why if you go to school they will explicitly tell you not to trust wikipedia, not to even use it as a basis for research for furthering your topic. Never mind they've got their own problems, where wikipedia investigates wikipedia [reddit.com] and finds no wrongdoing.

    • [...] one of the reasons why if you go to school they will explicitly tell you not to trust wikipedia, not to even use it as a basis for research for furthering your topic.

      Teachers had the same complaint about the Dummies book. Whenever I need a broad overview of an unfamiliar subject, I would get a Dummies book (or go to Wikipedia), from there I'll decide where to go from there. Alas, schools don't teach critical thinking skills and most people can't jump from a single source to multiple sources.

      • Teachers have the same complaint about 50 year old encyclopedias they are often out of date or have incomplete information.

  • by 110010001000 ( 697113 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2016 @09:16AM (#51996525) Homepage Journal
    So fork it. Problem "solved". People like to complain about stuff.
    • So fork it. Problem "solved". People like to complain about stuff.

      Well said.

      Still, forking never actually seems to work. After the initial uproar that led to the fork dies down, people pretty much abandon the fork and go back to the trunk project, and continue to grumble about the same issues. Can anyone name a forked-and-renamed project that actually became the most prominent branch? There's bound to have been some, but I can't for the life of me think of one.

      Devuan? Nope. Soylent News? Nope. Wikipedia 2? Probably not.

      • by AvitarX ( 172628 )

        Libre Office?

      • That is because once complainers actually have to produce something they find out how hard it is and how life isn't perfect. You have to break a few eggs to make an omelette as we say in the US.
      • A few successful forks come to mind, besides Libre Office: Firefox (from mozilla), webkit (from khtml). ubuntu (from debian), joomla (from mambo), xorg (from xfree86).

      • EGCS [wikipedia.org]:

        In 1997, a group of developers formed Experimental/Enhanced GNU Compiler System (EGCS) to merge several experimental forks into a single project.[18][19] The basis of the merger was a GCC development snapshot taken between the 2.7 and 2.81 releases. Projects merged included g77 (Fortran), PGCC (P5 Pentium-optimized GCC), many C++ improvements, and many new architectures and operating system variants.[20] EGCS development proved considerably more vigorous than GCC development, so much so that the FSF o

      • Jenkins from Hudson
      • systemd. It took over udev, and is now installed on far more places than udev was before.

    • I remembered there was a good Wikipedia fork out there, however Googling "wikipedia fork" finds you some nice wikipedia articles about cutlery, a town in Washington, and the concept of a software fork.

  • by bretts ( 2480008 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2016 @09:17AM (#51996545)
    Whether it is Open Source, or "wisdom of the crowd," or whatever: people need to work together, so there must be a power structure and rules. Alternatively, you find some very talented people and give them absolute power, but that upsets people. So, the audience defines the product, and the workers define the organization of the venture, whether it is pro-profit or not. You see the same thing in church groups, rock bands, PTAs and militias that you do in corporate America and Wikipedia.
    • by JustNiz ( 692889 )

      >> "wisdom of the crowd,"

      Everything I've ever seen in my 52+ years of life confirms that sentence is an oxymoron.

      • Wisdom of the crowd is an extension of the "invisible hand" ideas of the utilitarians: if enough people think something is good enough idea to vote for it or buy it, the overall decision made will be a good one. I counter this with what I have observed, which is the wisdom of individuals if assembled to common purpose. Someone has always noticed something or has some idea, and so if you give that person the ability to gain wealth or glory from that idea, he or she will implement it to the benefit of all. Th
        • The core problem seems to be that people don't really understand what is in their long-term best interest. So what appears to be a smart decision to one person becomes a really big problem when everybody else makes the same decision. It's like the prisoner's dilemma, or the Trump/Cruz/Kasich problem. If everybody does what's in his immediate best interest, everybody may end up with a sub-optimum outcome.
        • by JustNiz ( 692889 )

          >> if you give that person the ability to gain wealth or glory from that idea, he or she will implement it to the benefit of all.

          I dont agree with that either. In such a case they will implement it for their own benefit regardless if others benefit or not, or even get actively hurt. Look at the big pharma corps for perfect examples.

  • by Attila Dimedici ( 1036002 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2016 @09:18AM (#51996551)
    The first mistake people make is in thinking that bureaucracies have top down control. In a bureaucracy, no one individual (or small group of individuals) have control. Ultimately, bureaucracies come into existence to protect people from being held accountable for their actions. Any organization which does not have a strong leader who takes responsibility for the bad things which happen in the organization (and thus holds those most responsible for those bad things accountable) will turn into a bureaucracy. Even an organization with such a leader will become a bureaucracy if they have to delegate decision making too far down the organization from themselves.
  • by TWX ( 665546 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2016 @09:19AM (#51996563)
    Wikipedia is playing King of the Hill.

    The person that spends the most time making edits is the Editor. And there are a lot of self-important busy-bodies that will revert casual edits because they can. Some will attempt to justify it with official-sounding reasons for reversing, others will simply revert without much comment.

    This is why I don't contribute to Wikipedia anymore, and why I do not browse it as much as I used to. The idea was interesting, but due to the way it was set up, the trolls run the place.
    • by QuietLagoon ( 813062 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2016 @09:22AM (#51996593)

      ...The person that spends the most time making edits is the Editor. And there are a lot of self-important busy-bodies that will revert casual edits because they can....

      Worth repeating... The person that spends the most time making edits is the Editor. And there are a lot of self-important busy-bodies that will revert casual edits because they can.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Almost every time I have found an error on Wikipedia it turned out that someone else had already corrected it before, only to be reverted by someone who felt he owned the page. Usually they didn't provide an edit summary to explain why they reverted the correction, and often it was clear they had not in fact read the correction at all. It's really disheartening; more often than not I find myself sighing and moving on if I spot an error, even when it's as uncontroversial as a typo. The wiki spirit is dead an

        • by Anonymous Coward

          Be bold in your edits because it's easy for us to revert and ignore!

      • by labnet ( 457441 )

        While you are correct, it seems an easy problem to fix with meta moderation which /. Used to use in its early days.

        Thus reverts must be voted on as to whether they were justified or not; then those moderations are also meta moderated.

    • by mysidia ( 191772 )

      The person that spends the most time making edits is the Editor. And there are a lot of self-important busy-bodies that will revert casual edits because they can.

      Just revert the reversion, unless they made a valid point. Due to the 3RR rule, you can revert 3 times, unless another author agrees with them, Also, your edit will wind up remaining in place, because the other user is also not allowed to revert more than 3 times, and if they do, you can request intervention.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        "Unless another author agrees with them" ...

        What happens if "self-important busy-body" has two accounts?

      • by TWX ( 665546 )

        Just revert the reversion, unless they made a valid point. Due to the 3RR rule, you can revert 3 times, unless another author agrees with them, Also, your edit will wind up remaining in place, because the other user is also not allowed to revert more than 3 times, and if they do, you can request intervention.

        I'm sorry, I have this thing called a life. I'm not going to play games like trying to bump-up against an edit/revert counter with a bunch of people that don't have lives, I have better things to do.

        • by mysidia ( 191772 )

          I'm sorry, I have this thing called a life. I'm not going to play games like trying to bump-up against an edit/revert counter with a bunch of people that don't have lives

          Then it starts to seem like you were not very sincere about contributing the article in the first place, if you're unwilling to engage with other people community and/or the other editors, and confront them, resolve conflicting goals, or decide which differences are important to argue over. The encyclopedia anyone can edit, Does Not ne

    • by AvitarX ( 172628 )

      The only edit I made stuck, it was trivial though. I simply added a link to something I wanted to read about, but wasn't linked (Japanese Lacquerware was referenced but not linked in the Urushiol article, since then it has had Chinese, and Korean added and linked).

      I'm too lazy to research real edits though, but that seems like the trivial type you say would get reverted for no reason.

      • The only edit I made stuck, it was trivial though. I simply added a link to something I wanted to read about, but wasn't linked (Japanese Lacquerware was referenced but not linked in the Urushiol article, since then it has had Chinese, and Korean added and linked).

        So you're the dirty motherfucker who did that! >:-(

    • by gsslay ( 807818 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2016 @09:44AM (#51996771)

      Some will attempt to justify it with official-sounding reasons for reversing

      If you actually read the "official-sounding reasons", you'll probably find that they're following policy, whereas you're not.

      There are a lot of "casual edits" that get reverted because they're crap submitted by someone who doesn't understand the need for Wikipedia being verifiable, or even what an encyclopaedia should be about.

      It really is a difficult battle to win. On one side you get people mocking factual inaccuracies in Wikipedia, and on the other you get people complaining that their unsupported fact (with included personal observation) gets removed. We can't have it both ways.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by QuietLagoon ( 813062 )

        ...If you actually read the "official-sounding reasons", you'll probably find that they're following policy, whereas you're not....

        Such as reverting a major edit because the tense of a single verb in the edit was not correct? Yes, that was the "official sounding reason" given.

        .
        Why not just correct the verb's tense instead of using the incorrect tense to justify the complete removal of the edit?

        WikiPedia had, has and will continue to have (did I get those verb tenses correct?) a significant problem with helicopter editors who want to do little more than feed their egos, instead of assuring accuracy of articles.

        Until WikiPedia fac

    • by Anonymous Coward

      The "editors" that camp on thousands of articles have automated tools to reverse changes, even though the edit may do nothing more than correct a single spelling or grammar issue. If you dare ask why errors were restored, you can expect the wrath of the "editor" and his mates to come down upon you, and find all of your work deleted. Fuck wiki, their constant begging, and their so-called editors.

    • This is why I don't contribute to Wikipedia anymore, and why I do not browse it as much as I used to. The idea was interesting, but due to the way it was set up, the trolls run the place.

      So you're implying you know of a better way of setting it up? If so, why don't you go ahead and do it?

    • This is completely correct, but the solution is not forking, as many will suggest. Recognizing that there are different views on everything should be accomplished not by just having different paragraphs in the same article, but entirely different articles with different maintainers under the same title, with presentation clearly calling out the different maintainers. Further, you could make the articles clearly part of someone or some group's approval.

      This way people who want to understand the differing vie

  • There is policing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mysidia ( 191772 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2016 @09:19AM (#51996567)

    This may seem surprising, since there is no policing authority on Wikipedia

    Yes there is.... Haven't you ever heard of "New Page Patrol" ? There are such things as Oversighters (History Suppression); The WP Foundation has Police power through Oversighter, and Control of stewards who assign Administrative permissions to some users, who then act as police, [wikipedia.org]Selective Deletion [wikipedia.org] (Destroying/Hiding historical information about past actions), Banned Users, Requests for Discussion, Votes for Deletion, Speedy Page Deletion (eg BLP), and Banned Content

    no established top-down means of control. The community is self-governing, relying primarily on social pressure to enforce the established core norms

    There are top-down means of control in regards to certain actions (Oversighting).

    • by Anonymous Coward

      no established top-down means of control

      Blocks, bans, pagelocks, and deletions. To name but a few.

      Wikipedia is chock-a-block with means and methods of control. Access to those means, is gained exclusively through corrupt backchannels. Editing does not come into it. It's a tyranny of the passive-aggressive, over the the well meaning.

      The system is outrageously, absurdly, and perniciously corrupt. It would be better for everyone if Wikipedia was shut down at this point, because the political agendas and wingnu

    • In limited cases - mostly those involving legal issues or to prevent real-world harm - The Wikimedia Foundation steps in and "dictates from on high."

      Granted, that's not exactly "external" as the WMF trustees are elected by the community.

      The WMF also steps in - whether willingly or not - when a court orders them to do so or, more commonly, when their in-house lawyers tell them they have to step in or they will likely be hauled into court and lose or when it's so obvious that they would lose they don't even n

    • by AvitarX ( 172628 )

      But it is sited, and up to date, which is far superior than the encyclopedias I had growing up.

      • It's sited, but is It *cited*? It shouldn't be because Wikipedia is a secondary source but I think we can agree wikipedia is cited far too often and possibly not sited enough (since they always ask for more money, presumably to expand the number of sites to deal with all the citations. None of which has anything to do with articles occasionally having of its own citations.

        To be clear I'm not mocking you but could not resist the play of words

  • by Anonymous Coward

    "Rebel all you want, ultimately you become The Establishment."

    Reminds me of when the Kinks were at the Carnegie and remarked something like "...Rock'n'Roll has become respectable. Bummer."

  • for a long time due to SJW's seizing articles and the bureaucracy letting it happen.

    Basic rules for classifying political alignment on WIkipedia:

    If it's seen as a positive thing it's left wing, if it's seen it's negative it's right, even if the world socialism is used to describe the ideology.

    If there's a way to take a stab at something male when gender neutral terms would work just as well or better take the stab. If it gets neutralized change it back and use the justification "no it was right before".

    Som

  • by JustNiz ( 692889 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2016 @09:37AM (#51996725)

    >> The community is self-governing, relying primarily on social pressure to enforce the established core norms

    The real trouble with this approach is not that a few people get control, but that it inevitably leads to a real bias in the Wikipedia entries themselves.

  • entrenched editors at wikimedia have made content there highly biased.
    for example check the article on british empire;
    attempts to include the factual cited details about british empire's mass murders and genocides, ethnic cleansings(well in to 1970s) , regime sanctioned slavery and bonded labor, preventable famines that killed millions(in to 1940s), large scale land and resource grabs, destruction and looting of cultural treasures, regular revolts and protests against regime ( both violent and non violent)

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      entrenched editors at wikimedia have made content there highly biased. for example check the article on british empire

      Wikipedia pages represent the range of views of the British Empire that exists in the world, from a force for order and civilization on the globe to an evil empire. The main article leans towards the traditional historical views, but pages on genocides, war crimes, etc. are also there. I'm sorry if that doesn't satisfy you, but it doesn't make it "highly biased". What would be highly biased

      • there is blatant bias in main british empire article (or as you say "leans towards the traditional historical views").
        those attempt to remove that 'leaning' with well cited factual details (some of which are used without problem in some of other articles you cite) are censored and banned from wikipedia, by entrenched privileged editors. (that is the way to "represent the range of views"? ). even the discussion page is censored. ( for confirmation see history pages, of the article and of discussion page, i

  • by Alomex ( 148003 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2016 @10:26AM (#51997175) Homepage

    Back around 1999 to 2001 when people were all excited about user generated content being able to bypass the gatekeepers, I predicted that sooner or later out of practical considerations a bureaucracy would arise around wikipedia, just like the gatekeeper of say, encyclopaedia britannica, except sans the qualifications.

    Guess what, here we are.

    • Back around 1999 to 2001 when people were all excited about user generated content being able to bypass the gatekeepers, I predicted..

      Have you got a link to that? ;)

    • by tnk1 ( 899206 )

      Yes, it is hard to establish facts without authority. For anything that you are not personally an expert or at least experienced with, you have to rely on someone else telling you what is true. Sometimes you can personally go and verify those statements, but frequently our best means of determining whether something is false are the collisions between two or more people disagreeing about a fact. And then it becomes a matter who you trust more and what method you use to bestow your trust.

      For instance, you

  • by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2016 @10:32AM (#51997247) Journal

    "You start with a decentralized democratic system, but over time you get the emergence of a leadership class with privileged access to information and social networks," DeDeo explained. "Their interests begin to diverge from the rest of the group. They no longer have the same needs and goals. So not only do they come to gain the most power within the system, but they may use it in ways that conflict with the needs of everybody else."

    Karl Marx could not have written that any better.

  • All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. -George Orwell
  • Wikipedia Is Basically a Corporate Bureaucracy, Says Study

    Never mind the study. What does the billiard room have to say about it?

  • Wikipedia is a joke. So is that idea that any organization can function in a "de-centralized, democratic fashion" without every single member of the "democracy" holding the same standards and values as every other person in the group. It's an ideal, but basically, there will always be people willing to spend more time and energy on a given project than others, and they will always emerge as the "leadership class." The problem there is that if those individuals are assholes. And the problem with this pla
  • I've seen rules used to push whatever agenda someone has on wikipedia. Couple of my favorites, only internet accessible verification of a published article is allowed as fact. So that time, when an author tries to correct a "theory" someone else has on his own book, he isn't an authority. Even if he has a website of his own with verification. Also excludes the 70's and 80's topical stories, since many aired on TV and only made a few news articles. So we have no historically available news sites to b

    • So that time, when an author tries to correct a "theory" someone else has on his own book, he isn't an authority.

      Nor should he be. Interpretation is done by the readers, not the writer, so just because the author meant something to be interpreted a certain way tells us nothing about how it is actually interpreted.

  • Parent organization of Wikipedia?
  • Wikipedia is a real life Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Its organizational structure may be a bit chaotic and perhaps not as democratic as some think it should be, but in a couple thousand years it will probably be pretty difficult to make your way around the galaxy without it.

    Regardless, all nonprofit organizations become "corporate bureaucracies" after a while once they start employing people. Once people make a career out of a nonprofit they will do whatever they can to sustain it because they want to

"The vast majority of successful major crimes against property are perpetrated by individuals abusing positions of trust." -- Lawrence Dalzell

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